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Question to people with kids: if you could do it again, would you do it at a different time of your life? Personally I’d like to wait until I’m in my mid 30s f

Question to people with kids: if you could do it again, would you do it at a different time of your life? Personally I’d like to wait until I’m in my mid 30s for some of the reasons Paul mentions: you have less time outside of work to do other things once you have kids. Seems like being a founder or even just trying to advance aggressively in a standard career is a lot harder if you have dependents. There’s also two key trade offs I see too: money vs. energy. The more financially well off you are when you have children, the easier things will be (affording the house in the right neighborhood, daycare, etc.). So in that respect it’s probably better to delay having children. But if you delay too long, you might not have enough energy to do things your children want to do, and have a higher risk of health problems cropping up which take time away from kids

marsrover 7y ago
I had a kid at 30 and think it was the perfect time. I wouldn't want to be too old when my kids are going to college, I want to be a good age where I can enjoy my free time and travel around.
munificent 7y ago
I had my kids when I was 30 and it's worked out well. I wouldn't want to go much later. I have friends who started later and it's fine now, but when their kids are in high school, the parents will be in their fifties. I want to have a little more youth and energy to spend with my children as they enter adulthood. My twenties were a very parenting-unfriendly time of my life. I was in a couple of bands, going out a lot, moved around a bunch. It was convenient to have that luxury for a while. I used to work with a guy who had his kids at 18. I can't imagine being a parent when I was that young and dumb, but I gotta admit to some real envy. When I worked with him, he was in his thirties and his kids were getting ready to move out. Having the child part of parenthood "done" and still having plenty of youth and many years of time to look forward to — spending time both with and without now-grown kids — sounds pretty amazing.
deleted 7y ago
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nappy-doo 7y ago
I recommend you have kids as early as you can, but no earlier. You don't understand until you have children, but your life is divided in two: the time before you have kids and the time after. You don't know this, but you actually want more time with your kids, but you won't know this until you have them. I would have had them earlier (I had 'em at 34 and 37) if I could do it again. Probably like 30-32 if I could.
aklemm 7y ago
If I had started younger, I would've tried for 4 kids instead of 2. I was 33 and 36 at my childrens' births. I would definitely do it younger if I had it to do over because now I want as much time with them as possible and would like time with grandkids. That said, we are fairly comfortable financially, and if that would necessarily not have been the case if I'd started younger, then it's really hard to say whether I would chose that in retrospect. That said, I'm not sure having kids has to be so bad for your career. Nothing focuses a person more than needed to keep work time-boxed in order to leave time for family. Perhaps the totally self-motivated types would suffer, but for me and other parents I've known, it can sort of add a level of maturity and focus that can actually help a career.
cookiecaper 7y ago
Once you're an adult, the younger you can have them, the better. You're right that you need the health and the energy, but it's more than just that. There's a world before kids and a world after kids, and the world after kids is much better. It's night and day. You want to live in the post-kids world as long as possible. Like Paul is saying, it'll change your perspective on everything, and you'll be much less grumpy. You'll understand the world at a much deeper level. You'll be more accepting of everyone around you. Your priorities will be a lot better. Your perspective will stretch outside yourself and across the generations. As much as people think they have it together before they have kids, they have no skin in the game, and they have no idea what they're talking about. When I meet people who don't have kids, especially as they advance into their late 20s and 30s, my overwhelming sentiment is pity. They're yammering on about their expensive cars, their exotic vacations, their large empty houses, and the long hours they waste slaving away for some distant corporate master on some irrelevant chunk of code, and while many seem to think these things are impressive, the only thing I feel is pity for the empty materialism and wasted effort that dominates their lives. It's obvious they're looking for some meaning in the wrong places. Humans need the significance and the responsibility that come from parenthood. It's irreplaceable, incomparable. Life without kids is all but worthless. My advice is stop planning because everything you think you know is wrong. Get married and have kids. It's hard, sure. You don't have as much time for personal interests, also sure. You don't have as much spare cash (usually hardly any). But none of that matters, and if you think it matters, it's because you don't have kids yet. Source: 6 kids.
perlgeek 7y ago
I was 27/30 when my two kids were born, and don't regret it. I do remember having the wish to have children, and thinking "not yet". And somebody I respected told me "it's never the perfect time to have children". There's a tendency towards thinking that, whatever your current situation might be, there might be a better time. I finished my degree, moved in with my girlfriend of several years, and started a PhD program. I considered waiting with procreation until I finished the program, but decided the time was good enough. Sure, having a PhD and a well-paying job would be even more awesome, but even then I might have wanted to wait for that next promotion around the corner, or owning a house, or whatever. There's never the perfect time to have kids. If you want kids, ask yourself: is it good enough now?

marsrover 7y ago

I had a kid at 30 and think it was the perfect time. I wouldn't want to be too old when my kids are going to college, I want to be a good age where I can enjoy my free time and travel around.

munificent 7y ago

I had my kids when I was 30 and it's worked out well. I wouldn't want to go much later. I have friends who started later and it's fine now, but when their kids are in high school, the parents will be in their fifties. I want to have a little more youth and energy to spend with my children as they enter adulthood. My twenties were a very parenting-unfriendly time of my life. I was in a couple of bands, going out a lot, moved around a bunch. It was convenient to have that luxury for a while. I used to work with a guy who had his kids at 18. I can't imagine being a parent when I was that young and dumb, but I gotta admit to some real envy. When I worked with him, he was in his thirties and his kids were getting ready to move out. Having the child part of parenthood "done" and still having plenty of youth and many years of time to look forward to — spending time both with and without now-grown kids — sounds pretty amazing.

deleted 7y ago

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nappy-doo 7y ago

I recommend you have kids as early as you can, but no earlier. You don't understand until you have children, but your life is divided in two: the time before you have kids and the time after. You don't know this, but you actually want more time with your kids, but you won't know this until you have them. I would have had them earlier (I had 'em at 34 and 37) if I could do it again. Probably like 30-32 if I could.

aklemm 7y ago

If I had started younger, I would've tried for 4 kids instead of 2. I was 33 and 36 at my childrens' births. I would definitely do it younger if I had it to do over because now I want as much time with them as possible and would like time with grandkids. That said, we are fairly comfortable financially, and if that would necessarily not have been the case if I'd started younger, then it's really hard to say whether I would chose that in retrospect. That said, I'm not sure having kids has to be so bad for your career. Nothing focuses a person more than needed to keep work time-boxed in order to leave time for family. Perhaps the totally self-motivated types would suffer, but for me and other parents I've known, it can sort of add a level of maturity and focus that can actually help a career.

cookiecaper 7y ago

Once you're an adult, the younger you can have them, the better. You're right that you need the health and the energy, but it's more than just that. There's a world before kids and a world after kids, and the world after kids is much better. It's night and day. You want to live in the post-kids world as long as possible. Like Paul is saying, it'll change your perspective on everything, and you'll be much less grumpy. You'll understand the world at a much deeper level. You'll be more accepting of everyone around you. Your priorities will be a lot better. Your perspective will stretch outside yourself and across the generations. As much as people think they have it together before they have kids, they have no skin in the game, and they have no idea what they're talking about. When I meet people who don't have kids, especially as they advance into their late 20s and 30s, my overwhelming sentiment is pity. They're yammering on about their expensive cars, their exotic vacations, their large empty houses, and the long hours they waste slaving away for some distant corporate master on some irrelevant chunk of code, and while many seem to think these things are impressive, the only thing I feel is pity for the empty materialism and wasted effort that dominates their lives. It's obvious they're looking for some meaning in the wrong places. Humans need the significance and the responsibility that come from parenthood. It's irreplaceable, incomparable. Life without kids is all but worthless. My advice is stop planning because everything you think you know is wrong. Get married and have kids. It's hard, sure. You don't have as much time for personal interests, also sure. You don't have as much spare cash (usually hardly any). But none of that matters, and if you think it matters, it's because you don't have kids yet. Source: 6 kids.

perlgeek 7y ago

I was 27/30 when my two kids were born, and don't regret it. I do remember having the wish to have children, and thinking "not yet". And somebody I respected told me "it's never the perfect time to have children". There's a tendency towards thinking that, whatever your current situation might be, there might be a better time. I finished my degree, moved in with my girlfriend of several years, and started a PhD program. I considered waiting with procreation until I finished the program, but decided the time was good enough. Sure, having a PhD and a well-paying job would be even more awesome, but even then I might have wanted to wait for that next promotion around the corner, or owning a house, or whatever. There's never the perfect time to have kids. If you want kids, ask yourself: is it good enough now?